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There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Dan Gilbert will go to the next NBA lottery in disguise, but a low-key approach -- minus the entourage and the bow ties -- might be the best approach at this point.
(David Andersen/The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Because there's always something to spin in the world of sports...

SPINOFFS

• With the league's ninth-worst record, the Cavs are going back to the lottery with a 1.7 percent chance of landing the top pick. That’s means there’s a 98.3 percent chance that their luck has run out.

If the last four years are the residue of good luck, I'm not sure we want to be around when the wishing well runs dry.

• Advice for the next Cavs trip to the lottery after their fourth consecutive season missing the playoffs.

No entourage. No bow ties. Think low key.

If you must dress in a way that calls attention to yourself, think fake nose and glasses.

• Texas AD Steve Patterson doesn’t understand the argument for unionizing college players because he says the rules already meet most, if not all, of their stated objections.

If what UConn’s Shabazz Napier said is true – that he and other players often went to bed hungry – no wonder even lawyers smell good to them.

• Patterson makes some reasonable points. But as the CEO of a $170 million athletic budget, two weeks after a Final Four that reaps billions for the NCAA, I’m not sure hammering other people on the basis that they’re trolling for money is necessarily the right approach.

You’d worry about a kid like Savage waiting and waiting and waiting in the green room for his name to be called (as Brady Quinn did) but Louisville’s Teddy Bridgewater has already been cast in that role.

So a guy thought to be one of the top two quarterbacks all season looks great in his bowl game and then, without throwing a pass, suddenly falls behind quarterbacks who didn’t look nearly as good.

If they ever delay the draft until June, sure first-rounders will be leave the draft as street free agents because they clocked bad times in the three-cone drill.

Why again did Jadeveon Clowney’s agent finally end private workouts?

Other than the chance of injury and of being downgraded for not running in circles fast enough?

• Clowney, one of the draft's top prospects, finally had enough of private workouts though he planned to grace one team with five minutes of activity but not – as his agent cautioned – any “heavy lifting.”

“If they aren’t at the Pro Day or the Combine, where are they?” agent Bus Cook said.

Probably in Berea.

• Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka is 2-0 with 28 Ks in three games. If that’s nothing special, as Baltimore’s Adam Jones suggested after facing Tanaka the first time, how to describe Carlos Carrasco these days?

Nothing?

• The New York Knicks missed the playoffs with a 37-45 record. That was an enormous 17-win decline.

Nobody could’ve seen it coming, except the people who saw it coming. ESPN’s Inside Predictions, based on Kevin Pelton's SCHOENE projection system, picked exactly that record for the Knicks. When the season ended this week, observers remembered head coach Mike Woodson’s response when he learned of the prediction.

“Do they play?” Woodson said. “It’s a computer system. So I don’t think computers run up and down the floor.”

Then again, neither did the Knicks some nights.

• John Daly hit a drive off a tee placed delicately in a prone women’s mouth.

Not that Daly has become a complete sideshow, but the only few surprising aspects of this story are that he 1) wasn’t blindfolded and smoking a cigarette, 2) she was wearing clothes and 3) wasn’t a Hooter’s waitress.

• In 52 games, No. 1 overall pick Anthony Bennett averaged 4.1 points per game and 2.9 rebounds. Let’s just round it off and call it three rebounds.

That should end the “bust” talk.

• Houston’s James Harden told Hannah Storm he wouldn’t shave his beard off for $5 million. When she mentioned $10 million, Harden said, “Then we can talk.”

Larrazabal, who was treated for several stings, not only continued playing, he regained his focus and birdied the hole and shot 2 under for the round.

But cough in any golfer’s backswing and he’ll stare a hole through you meant to make you wish you were never born.

• The 49ers have no plans to part ways with Aldon Smith after his latest arrest at LAX airport.

When Jim Harbaugh talked of expecting his players to be above reproach – unlike what they expect in Seattle, was the insinuation – he meant to specify less productive players than Smith would face serious consequences for their actions.

• It's easy to criticize Jason Kipnis for getting ejected from an important game against division rival Detroit, especially when every hitter knows arguing balls and strikes is an invitation to get tossed.

But in his defense, that Justin Verlander pitch couldn’t have been any lower if it were teed in the mouth of a garden snake.

• Chad Ochocinco, or whatever he’s calling himself these days, signed with Montreal of the Canadian Football League.

The number 85 in French, if you must know, is Quatre-Vingt-Cinq. Which would give Ocho one more hyphen than Darrius Heyward-Bey and about the same chance of making a big impact in the NFL anytime soon.

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